Comments Split on Music Modernization Act NOI on Ease of Pre-72 Sound Rights Search

Music Modernization Act notice of inquiry comments split between those urging the Copyright Office to make it easy for the public to search sound recordings to determine if they are available for noncommercial use and those wanting a more complex search process. MMA establishes a safe harbor for noncommercial use of pre-1972 sound recordings. Comments were posted Tuesday in docket COLC-2018-0008. Public Knowledge Policy Council Meredith Rose urged the CO to make an MMA checklist “accessible and comprehensible to non-specialists, and to make it as simple as allowed by the statute.” While PK proposed the CO require users “search no more than one to two services,” the American Association of Independent Music and RIAA proposed “dividing the various sources that users should search into different categories and then requiring all users to search in all categories (until a match is found).” The MMA process “doesn’t allow for any negotiation between the user and rights owner,” the groups said, urging it be used as “last resort.” SoundExchange endorsed the A2IM-RIAA comments. Noting noncommercial users under statutory licenses differ from noncommercial use in the context of fair use, RIAA said CO guidance should be clear. IFPI said to protect sound recordings originating outside the U.S. the process should include searches in “the country of origin of the sound recording in question” and in the language of origin. The Internet Archive recommended the process “entail performing a few high quality searches on a small number of large services rather than performing a low quality search across a large number of services.” Also filing were the Music Library Association, Library Copyright Alliance, Association of American Universities, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Copyright Alliance.